A new leader for the opposition

The official opposition picks its leader for a pretty thankless task

SHE is almost certain never to become South Africa's president. It is virtually unthinkable that her party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), would ever push the ruling African National Congress (ANC) out of power. But South Africa badly needs a vigorous opposition to keep the ANC on its toes, call it to account, pick holes in some of its policies, and offer people alternative ideas if not the likelihood of an alternative party in power. For sure, the looming race within the ANC to succeed President Thabo Mbeki, who must bow out in 2009, is far more important. But the election on May 6th of Helen Zille as leader of the DA, to succeed Tony Leon, is a notable event. It is vital for the well-being of South African democracy that she makes her mark.

AFPZille salutes her supporters

After 13 years as leader of what has become South Africa's main opposition, Mr Leon voluntarily stepped down, enabling Ms Zille, an energetic mayor of Cape Town, easily to defeat two rivals for the DA's top job. Her supporters ululated and blew horns, dancing and singing re ya lewena (we are going with you). Mr Leon left the stage with cheers, fireworks and kwaito, a South African version of hip hop.

He has done a good job, so far as it goes. Since 1994, what is now the DA has evolved through several changes and alliances. At its core is the old Progressive Party, whose leonine survivor, Helen Suzman, was for years the sole liberal opponent of government in the all-white apartheid-era Parliament. Competing in 1994 as the Democratic Party under Mr Leon, it got a paltry 1.7% of the vote. In the last general election, in 2004, as the Democratic Alliance, it got 12.4%. In local elections last year it got nearly 15%, and it now heads a coalition that runs Cape Town.

The cheeky chappie goes

Unlike many in the ANC, who think that national unity requires consensus politics, Mr Leon, a clever, bouncy lawyer, believes democracy must be adversarial. He refused a cabinet post in Nelson Mandela's government of national unity. The ANC has generally detested Mr Leon as confrontational, abrasive and arrogant. For his part, as an outspoken social and economic liberal, he castigates the ANC for—among other things—its authoritarian and centralising tendencies. He has also accused it of racism, including making snide remarks about his Jewishness.

The DA's biggest failure under Mr Leon has been its inability to win votes from black South Africans, who make up 80% of the population and still overwhelmingly support the ANC; the large bulk of DA votes comes from whites and Coloureds (South Africans of mixed race), who each represent about 9% of the population. The DA is reckoned to get less than 2% of the black vote. Unless it breaks into new territory, it will stay on the fringe of South African politics, despite being the official opposition in Parliament.

Last week's DA congress included a fair number of black and Coloured delegates, but its top leadership remains predominantly white. In 2005 most of the DA's black MPs defected to the ANC. Ms Zille, whose parents were refugees from Nazi Germany and who herself was a notable anti-apartheid journalist and campaigner, will find it hard to make inroads into the black vote.

Her best hope of boosting the DA is to run Cape Town better than the ANC runs other big cities, and to show that her party cares for the poor and understands the concerns of black voters. If the DA does well in Cape Town, it might have a chance of winning Western Cape province in the next general election, in 2009. So far Ms Zille has handled Cape Town's fragile ruling coalition well and has begun cleaning up the city's management. She says she wants to keep both jobs, as mayor of Cape Town and running the DA: a hard task.

In her acceptance speech, Ms Zille signalled her desire to appeal to all by speaking in English, in Afrikaans (spoken by whites of mainly Dutch descent and by many Coloureds) and in Xhosa, one of the country's most widely spoken African languages. She said she wanted to build bridges between South Africa's many cultures, and even urged everyone in the hall to start learning an extra South African language. She said that “black economic empowerment”, the ANC's policy of spreading the country's wealth more widely, “must include ordinary people, not just a small, politically connected elite”.

Sipho Masigo, a young DA city councillor who canvasses Johannesburg's largest township looking for recruits, admits it is not easy. He joined the DA in 2003, frustrated by the inaction of the ANC councillor in charge of the slum that used to be his home. In Soweto, Johannesburg's biggest township, he organises training, helps people find ways to make ends meet and tells them that democracy needs an opposition, pointing at next-door Zimbabwe. People, he says, are warming to the idea.

But the trouble for the DA and its new leader is that South Africa's many poor (measures of unemployment range from 25% to 40%) are keener on left-wing alternatives to the ANC than on the DA's liberal ideas. The ANC's real opposition is from within. The trade unions and the Communist Party, both still within the ruling ANC-led alliance, think it is too cosy with big business. One day the ANC's left may split off, though there is no sign of that happening soon. Meanwhile Ms Zille, who is able and courageous, needs to plug away at promoting her ideas, however limited her prospects of putting them into practice.